Goodbye Mr. Rooster, Hello Rocky

My first experience with chickens has definitely been exciting! As I shared the last time I wrote about my chickens, we ended up with a rooster who we called Roadrunner because he ran so fast. Here’s the video of him getting out his first crow:

Because our home is zoned R-1 residential, we are not allowed to keep roosters, so we had to exchange him for a hen. I was bummed because I thought it would’ve been super cool to raise my own baby chicks from my flock! I am sure most of my neighbors were happy to see him go, hearing a rooster crow at 6 am isn’t everyone’s cup of tea!

My first attempt to catch him by myself to bring him back to the farm, failed miserably. Thankfully, we came up with a good plan how to catch him, this all happened before our chicken condo was built so we couldn’t get inside the coop. Chasing him around our orchard was another thing I tried but that was also a failure, like I said, he was fast!

We moved a large dog crate right next to the entrance of the coop door, each time one chicken would step in, we’d shut them in, and then move the crate away from the coop door to let them out. We patiently repeated this process until the rooster stepped into the crate. Of course he was the last one to step in, I think he had a feeling whatever was about to happen wasn’t going to be good!

I loaded the crate into my car and made the one hour trek north to Root Down Farm. When I got there he was really afraid to come out of the crate and the farmer, Dee Dee, tried a couple of times to get him out before she was successful. Once he was out, she placed him onto the pasture with the rest of the chickens and he got chased by almost every other rooster there!

The pasture at Root Down Farm, the rooster I returned ins the brown one in the middle.

She was able to give me a Barred Plymouth Rock/Delaware mix in exchange for the rooster. We loaded her in the crate and off I went back home to introduce her to my existing flock. I was tempted to get another hen while I was there but resisted the urge, in hindsight that may have been a good idea.

The new addition, quite scared at the time

Once I arrived home with the new hen, I placed the crate under the big apple tree and let the other hens come check her out. Dee Dee recommended I did not let her loose in the orchard until the next day, and put her in the coop that night when there was less likely to be “issues.”

Checking out the new flock member

The next morning, they all came out of their coop and a few of my Delaware hens gave her some pecks and even pulled out a couple of feathers! Things have improved over the last several months but since we was added her to the flock almost 6 weeks later, she’s never really been accepted at part of the flock. She is the last in the pecking order and is a mostly a “loner.”

Each morning, she it is the last to get access to their feed, and when she’s eating usually another hen will “kick” her out-of-the-way, rather than share the feeder. It’s really sad because she is the sweetest of all the chickens! This is why I wish I would’ve gotten another hen at the same time, then at least she would’ve had another “friend.”

I’ve finally decided what to name these birds and I think I can finally tell the Delaware’s (the mostly white chickens) apart, they all look very similar! Originally, I wanted to have a theme for their names but having them around the last 5 months we ended up calling a few by other names that just “happened”, so only 3 have a theme. Now it’s time to share pictures of each of the ladies with their name 🙂

This is Diana (as in Diana Ross) she is the “top hen” and “diva” of the flock. She is also one of the most vocal hens. This was taken before the rooster was returned, you can see him in the background.

This is the smallest and skinniest of the hens, so her name ended up being Calista Flockhart 🙂

Keeping with the Motown theme, we named this girl Mary Wilson.

I know it’s not very unique but our brown Chantecler, ended up with the the name Brown Chicken!

Here’s the newest flock member, we call her Rocky.

Here’s Rocky hanging out on one of her favorite spots, the top of the compost bin. She is our biggest hen

Another picture of Calista, she likes to hang out around the bottom of the compost bins and eat worms.

This was the first hen to lay and she rounds out my Supremes “theme” this is Florence Ballard. I don’t think she was too happy when I peaked into the coop to see who was laying. As you can see, the old coop was tiny and they often would lay in the roost area instead of the next boxes.

There you have it, the silly names of my chickens, so far they’ve been fun but also a lot of work!